Fear of the known
We have all heard of a common quote ‘Fear of the unknown’, but today i want to talk about the Fear of the Known.
I have been writing since really wrong. As a kid I wrote small poems about my family, teacher, the many books that i wrote and lot of random stuff and shared it with my mom, who always encouraged me to work harder and improve.
Despite my love for words, whether it is writing or reading, I never thought of becomng a writer. Like a good student, I took up science, completed my engineering and got a job in Tata Motors. Life was going perfect, and I had a plan right from the beginning.
College — — -Job — — — MBA — — — Job in a publishing house
I always wanted to be part of writing ecosystem, but too afraid to be writing myself, so i thought taking up an HR or managerial job after an MBA in a publishing house would be great.
My perfect plan
The plan was running smoothly, i was working in Tata Motors, while also preparing for MBA. Until one day i met a senior who introduced me to Quora, a platfrom where one answers random questions. While this wasn’t the kind of writing i wanted to do, it fascinated me and i started writing.
This was just the start to something bigger. Day on day i was writing and being praised for my writing, and stories. People started asking me for tips. This praise pushed my MBA books aside and brought the writer in me to the forefront.
My mom often used to tell me ‘ You are sacrificing your future’. Well, it was too soon for those words.
How the Plan worked?
Within two years, Ileft my job and shifted to Delhi to start writing as a profession. I wrote blogs for people, made social media content and continued writing poems. I also started my blog anadipahadi, which did not sync with the person that I was, so i renamed it Braincuddle.
Today when I write something for my blog, on medium or Quora, I wonder why i did not think of this earlier. I would have saved the two years of my life or maybe the 4 years of engineering too.
Was it because of lack of resources — — -cannot be as internet was there for all resources.
The one thing that explains my behaviour is — — Fear of the Known.
I knew I wanted to write, be associated with a publishing house (hence the plan), but i was too afraid to accept my reality.
It was the fear of the known. Though I always looked up to women writer like Arundhati Roy, i never could picture myself in her shoes. I never imagined myself living her life, writing all day and more importantly i was never prepared to take the kind of criticism and love she was showered with.
This thought made me realise that Human’s greatest fear is not failure, but success. They have an idea, but they are not able to accept their ideas and become one with it. They are just too afraid to go out into the world and execute their idea.
It is very important to embrace failure and to do a lot of stuff — as much stuff as possible — with as little fear as possible. It’s much, much better to wind up with a lot of crap having tried it than to overthink in the beginning and not do it
